Rush: Conservative Values Spur Santorum Sweep

Conservative voters in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri carried Rick Santorum to three victories in the Republican presidential race Tuesday because the former Pennsylvania senator embodies their beliefs, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show today.

“I’m not surprised by this,” Limbaugh said. “It’s one of the reasons that I haven’t been panicking throughout all of this. I think I have a pretty good understanding and idea of where the Republican base is. If they’re given the opportunity to vote for what they think is important, they’ll do it.”

The Republican establishment is “unsettled” today because the electorate in all three states didn’t flock to Mitt Romney, Limbaugh said.

Santorum won Colorado by a narrow margin, and skated to victory in Minnesota's Republican caucuses, relegating the former Massachusetts governor to a distant third-place finish that raised fresh questions about his ability to attract ardent conservatives at the core of the party's political base. The former senator also was victorious in a nonbinding Missouri primary that was worth bragging rights but no delegates.

“The Republican establishment has no idea this was percolating out there,” he said. “I can’t believe how insulated they are.”

Limbaugh dispelled the notion that voters chose Santorum over Romney “because I’m telling them to, or because anybody else is telling them to.”

“They’re doing it because they genuinely have a problem with Romney,” he said. “If you’re looking for a conservative who is the least corrupted, who has the least number of periods of wandering off the reservation . . . then you get Rick Santorum.”